I have an AMD Athlon 64FX-55 and ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe mobo on it's way to me now. Any advice for memory brands/models? I've been checking corsair out, but with nearly no hardware experience matching sticks looks risky without some help. I'm shooting for 1-2GB total, depending on price. Any help would be appreciated.

03-15-2005

ober

So you're buying hardware with no experience and no research on your part. Brilliant.

Are you taking advantage of the SLI? What video cards are you getting?

And I wouldn't recommend more than 1GB of RAM initially unless you do a lot of rendering... if this is a gaming machine, 1Gb is more than enough.

BTW, you must be loaded. None of that stuff is cheap.

EDIT: GODDAMN... the processor alone is close to a grand USD.

03-16-2005

Crackle

Nice. Enough of an overbearing and condescending attitude to obscure any kindness involved in helping, but there's still that one pearl of wisdom that validates your existence. I liked the social warrior plug towards the end, too.

In all seriousness, my caustic friend, this machine has been a fantasy/hobby for a good year and a half now. I don't pretend to have the experience or the interest of extrimists and you'll rarely catch me reading up if not for a specific buy, but I try to stay up to date as well as one exiled to a liberal arts school is able.

To answer your questions, it'll see some moderate gaming but primarily serve as a workstation. Unless things go terribly wrong, that'll include some program development (nothing fancy) and a ........ton of computational neuroscience jobs with sizeable model simulations, large neural nets, eeg filtration/analysis jobs, whatever. Eventually I would like to "take advantage of the SLI," it being why I bought the damn thing, but due to the budget I'll be forced to get a single card for now. eVGA's card with the 6800 ultra chipset stood out as the least expensive manufacturer that I casually came across, but I haven't gotten time shop around yet.

Heading back to the RAM, I'd gravitated towards corsair. Now as I have no intentions to start overclocking any time soon, I was feeling pretty confident in picking up the TWINX1024-3200XL as recommended off their site. But while looking BACK through their forums (have I emphasized my own role in this enough yet?), most of the discussion seemed towards overclocking or a configuration difficulty.

So rather than "brilliantly" pumping cash into hardware specs/size/or models with conflicting testimonials (mostly w/ the latency), I'm rather appealing for anecdotes, advice, ideas, etc. from others with at least a common board and likely similar desired specs.

03-16-2005

ober

Ahh... someone with my sense of humor.

Now if that had been your origional post, I wouldn't have said what I did. For modeling and doing heavy calculations, I would push more for the 2GB range in terms of RAM. Again, that is assuming that the software you'll be using is able to take advantage of that much.

And to be honest, SLI won't give you much of an edge for modeling... a lot of the beef that goes into cruncing something like that is in the processor, not the video card. (not that you'll have a problem in that department.... I'd give my left nut for the proc you'll be using). A 6800 ultra will do you quite well.

Going back to the RAM issue for a second... Corsair is definately a top 5 for me... and I rarely use anything but Kingston, Corsair, or Samsung. I would gladly recommend any of the to you. And you should get something with CAS < 2.5... 2 if you can find it, but that'll bump up the price a bit.

Either way, I wish you luck and please feel free to post again if you have more comments or questions. I do apologize for being a bit rude before, but I always appreciate a plethora of info when someone asks a question like that. Otherwise, you sound like you haven't done your homework. ;)

03-16-2005

VirtualAce

I almost bought the same board but one of my friends has an FX55 and he has noticed next to no diff from the 32-bit CPUs. This is probably due to the fact that the tech is far beyond the software and so most of it really doesn't take advantage of it. MS is letting users try out XP64 for free for one full year - if MS is doing that you can bet they are not too sure about their 64 bit OS platform. There are a lot of new issue with 64 and in fact some older applications, and even newer games simply will not run on XP64. XP32 will NOT take advantage of the CPU power, but very soon you will see an OS and software that does.

So I went with an ASUS 32-bit A7N8X-E-Deluxe mobo, 1024mb of DDR3200(400) Corsair RAM, and an AMD 3200+ 2.2GHz CPU.

I'd get a 6800 GT or 6800 GT Ultra Extreme. Leadtek makes some of the best cards ever but they are a bit high. You will def want to have 256 mb of vid ram. Also the SLI is cool, but do you have to have 2 video cards or can you just run with 1, optionally with 2?

I'd go with Corsair or Kingston RAM. I used to be a Crucial only man, but they have slipped a bit since then.

03-16-2005

Crackle

Yeah, I burned a copy of XP64 the other day... Further posts as frustrations warrent. Going on pessimism, expect some loud screams from the east coast next week.

As long as the card is PCI-Express, the A8N-SLI is more than willing to run with just one. I'm not sure what the config entails, but I'll know tomorrow when the mobo shows up. My plan now is to stick with one and double it up when some internship cash rolls in.

As ob pointed out, doubling the cards isn't going to help the work much but I know the temptation'll be too much to resist.

Still putting off finalizing the memory buy, but I'll post the specs when I get around to it. I'm going to give Kingston another serious look. This discount that came boxed with a game is large enough to push me towards 'em if the sticks are comparable. Hopefully I'll order during lunch.

Thanks both,
Crack

03-16-2005

ober

Quote:

I'd get a 6800 GT or 6800 GT Ultra Extreme. Leadtek makes some of the best cards ever but they are a bit high. You will def want to have 256 mb of vid ram. Also the SLI is cool, but do you have to have 2 video cards or can you just run with 1, optionally with 2?

The point of SLI is that one card renders half the screen and the second card renders the other half. That is where you get the speed burst and the increased frame rates. There are 3 different types of SLI implementations, however, and different games use different implementations. So your system will run with the one, but you're not actually using the SLI technology until you have both plus the bridge.

Thanks for the XP64 update guys... I have been wondering about that, but I don't have a 64bit proc at the moment, so it wouldn't do me any good.

I'd be interested in a review when one of you gets it up and running (I assume they've made changes other than just taking it to a 64-bit platform!?!).

Oh, and I'll echo the comments about Crucial. Their hardware has been sketchy at best as of late.

EDIT: and might I ask why it is so important to have a 256mb card?? From what I've heard, most games don't even take advantage of 128... and if you're using 2 cards, 256 on each is kind of overkill, IMO.

I see that games need to have driver support to get the benefit of SLI. How about intense 3D and Animation applications? Will SLI function seamlessly with 3DStudio Max, Maya and the Adobe lineup? The system I am building for a client is primarily for these reasons, he likes games too, but he needs serious rendering power. I know Unwinder has added 6800 GT> 4000 Quadro conversion, but that negates SLI function correct?

the reply to that question by the OP of the thread in the link posted.

Quote:

No, SLI does not support 3D animation etc, not unless Nvidia actually add support to those apps. Atm, it is being developed primarily as the ultimate gaming set up, so, for example, there is no Dual monitor support when SLI mode is enabled. Basically, for gaming, SLI rocks, for 3d/animation apps you are better off with a pro card like the Quadro.